Author: Omid Sarmad

In these times of rapid and unprecedented change, our recognition of the critical need for urgent action in advancing greater workforce diversity and development, innovation and continuous learning, and “people-readiness” at all levels has risen to new levels. With a vastly changing national and global landscape – climate change, growing inequality, increasing digitalization, new players and business models – this webinar series will highlight the critical role of these careers in community building, achieving equity-centered and sustainable outcomes, and offer new insights on their potential to help redress historic systemic inequities in access to greater opportunities.

TRB will host the first webinar in this series on Wednesday, February 8, 2023 from 1:00 PM to 2:30 PM Eastern. Presenters will share emerging workforce needs and trends and suggestions for diversification and meaningful youth engagement in sustainable mobility and transport careers.

Register here!

Webinar agenda and presenters

• The sustainable mobility and transportation landscape – Beverly Scott, Introducing Youth to American Infrastructure Inc.
• Innovation: new and emerging trends – Nathaniel Ford, Jacksonville Transportation Authority
• Worker voices: making normal happen every day – Jamaine Gibson, Amalgamated Transit Union
• Question and answer session moderated by Jannet Walker-Ford, WSP

The first 60 minutes of the webinar will be for presentations and the final 30 minutes will be reserved for audience questions.

Learning Objectives

At the end of this webinar, participants will be able to:

• Explain the current national transport sector workforce challenges and opportunities
• Understand how coordination and integration support the community-building connection between mobility and transport careers
• Better prepare for transportation and sustainable mobility careers by possessing useful industry resources

The second webinar in this series, Sustainable Mobility: New and Expanding Opportunities, will be held on Wednesday, February 22, 2023. The third webinar in this series, Transportation Equity: Community-Building in Action, will be held on Wednesday, March 22, 2023.

The Delaware River Port Authority (DRPA/PATCO) has successfully made use of the principles of comedy improvisation, such as deep listening, empathy, and collaborative trust to nurture leadership skills and cooperation throughout the organization and continue to build a transformative organization to produce award-winning projects.

The skill of improvisation is increasingly valued by top executives today because they see in it a tool that enables their companies to be more nimble, flexible, and responsive. Please join CEO John Hanson, Director of Strategic Initiatives Christina Maroney, and improvisor Nick Gillette to learn how to introduce these essential skills into your organization through demonstrations and opportunities to participate.

This workshop builds on the introductory program offered in March. Access that recording and resources here.

Register today

Hosted by the Northeast Transportation Workforce Center

Sponsored by the National Network for the Transportation Workforce & The National Transportation Training Directors

Early investments in climate change research, policy, and planning focused heavily on climate mitigation—efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. As climate change impacts have increased in severity, this focus has broadened to include a greater emphasis on climate change adaptation—efforts to minimize the adverse impacts of climate change through hardening or relocating infrastructure, changing design standards, improving redundancy, and other measures. Building climate adaptation capacity within transportation agencies is not straightforward, however, because the knowledge base for climate adaptation is changing rapidly and because the process itself is inherently complex. Moreover, climate change impacts and, therefore, adaptation strategies vary regionally as agencies must manage stressors as varied as sea level rise, increased precipitation, extreme temperatures, reduced slope stability, and thawing permafrost. The growing emphasis on climate adaptation has created a demand for professionals with a new, interdisciplinary skillset. Since climate adaptation is an emerging field, the pathways for developing the skills and competencies for adaptation careers and their broad integration into transportation agencies are not well established.

This white paper assesses the workforce development needs and current training opportunities related to transportation-sector climate adaptation. To understand the climate adaptation workforce development environment, we examine training needs and opportunities identified by state and regional transportation agencies; catalog the training needs of aspiring and early career climate adaptation professionals; and scan the educational opportunities in climate adaptation currently offered by U.S. universities. Training needs and opportunities identified by transportation agencies were collected through an online survey developed by the authors. The experience of aspiring adaptation professionals was captured in a unique survey conducted by the American Society of Adaptation Professionals (ASAP) as part of their mentorship program. Current graduate educational programs related to climate adaptation were identified during this project through a web-search. These diverse datasets, combined with lessons learned from existing adaptation initiatives, provide unique insights into the competencies needed for climate adaptation as well as the current capacity for training adaptation professionals.

Check out the latest white paper from the National Center for Sustainable Transportation for the full report.

Across the transportation industry, public and private employers are experiencing workforce shortages and an uncertain future. As older employees retire and younger workers fill their roles, organizations must naturally adjust to accommodate their changing workforce. In the transportation industry, shifting demographics have also brought new attitudes regarding technical jobs. The result is that fewer engineers and other highly skilled professionals are entering the field, and keeping those who do is becoming increasingly difficult. To address this changing landscape, transportation agencies of all sizes must be prepared to meet the challenges ahead or risk falling behind.

Serving communities of varying sizes and needs, Minnesota’s transportation agencies rely on a qualified workforce to deliver a range of projects and services. Without a reliable pipeline of dedicated staff, these agencies could experience disruptions in the important work they provide.

What Was Our Goal?

The Minnesota Local Road Research Board commissioned a study to investigate the growing workforce shortage in Minnesota’s transportation industry, identify the possible causes and determine strategies to improve how agencies across the state find and keep workers.

What Did We Do?

Researchers began by reviewing published literature to better understand the changing labor market as well as current trends and best practices in human resources strategies.

A survey of an anonymous sample of 149 workers currently employed in both the public and private sectors of Minnesota’s transportation industry gauged this population’s perceptions on a variety of job-related topics, such as workplace satisfaction, loyalty and career support. The research team conducted one-on-one follow-up interviews with 14 employees to explore these issues in more depth.

What Did We Learn?

With fewer qualified applicants entering the workforce and a limited talent pool to draw from, employers in both the public and private sectors are constantly competing to fill vacancies. Transportation jobs in the public sector offer several enticing advantages over their private counterparts, including more competitive benefits, a perception of greater stability during economic downturns, flexible hours, greater work-life balance and variety of work. Conversely, the benefits of private sector jobs are thought to be higher salaries, more advancement opportunities, better-defined expectations and less bureaucratic red tape.

In both the public and private sectors, jobs in rural areas tend to be harder to fill and attract less diverse applicants than those in urban areas. Respondents in this study suggested that more targeted recruitment strategies and clearly worded job descriptions could improve these efforts.

“For some organizations, the workplace culture is deeply rooted and can be challenging to change. I commend the agencies for their willingness to take this journey and make sure they are a place where the most talented people want to work,” said Kenneth Bartlett, professor, University of Minnesota Department of Organizational Leadership, Policy and Development.

Acknowledging that workforce-related challenges will be different for agencies across the state and that systemic change is never easy, researchers developed a list of recommendations to help public transportation agencies recruit and retain a top-notch workforce:

• Promote the assets. Make sure that the benefits of working at Minnesota’s public transportation agencies are conveyed and promoted to all hiring managers so they can be relayed to applicants.
• Increase awareness of transportation careers. Create a marketing strategy that exposes younger people to the transportation industry. Aim to reach and excite students about transportation-related employment options early in their education, possibly while they are still in middle school.
• Describe jobs realistically. Detailing the job’s expectations from the outset will go a long way toward reducing potential frustrations.
• Reduce red tape. When possible, allow for exceptions in hiring, compensation and advancement practices. Protocols such as paperwork and budget requests that require a substantial time commitment or advanced planning can be barriers to filling positions quickly or in response to a sudden need.
• Offer mentorships. Provide formal opportunities for employees to learn from each other, with the expectation that these could lead to job promotion.
• Plan for succession. Ensure that retirements and other vacancies will be filled quickly and possibly with internal candidates. Relying on existing employees to absorb a departing co-worker’s work can lead to burnout and resentment.
• Document workplace practices. Invest in knowledge management systems so that key information can be retained as employees retire.

What’s Next?

These recommendations can provide hiring managers with more immediate strategies that, if implemented, can help transportation agencies become more competitive in their efforts to attract and retain a qualified workforce for years to come.

Related Links

• Research project page
• Research report
• Fact sheet

Check out the full article at https://mntransportationresearch.org/2021/04/08/strategies-for-recruiting-and-retaining-minnesotas-transportation-workforce/?fbclid=IwAR1yUXtyE6yr4f9CnKcJtmFk461SULlmr0gI1FTia3TekUEfChzXCUpyLrs

This webinar shares the experiences and problem-solving approaches to maintaining effective training programs that meet the needs of employees and their agencies, with a look at:

• How TDOT is adapting class activities to a virtual environment and deciding which programs to move forward, all while dealing with technical issues and pandemic restrictions.
• How Vermont’s Strategic Workforce Committees are connecting with employees across the state regarding Learning & Development, Manager & Supervisor Resources, Employee Retention & Recognition, and Talent Acquisition.
• CDOT’s process of problem ID and solution, course/program prioritization, program reinvention and rollout as a response to COVID restrictions, and highlighting some of the tools used to register, track, and report on training completions.

The recorded web session is at: https://youtu.be/ci2novD3F7M

You can find a copy of each presenter’s slides below

• Elena L. Knaffl, Training Specialist, Tennessee Department of Transportation
• Colleen Montague, Learning Development & Support Manager, VT AOT
• Kevin MacVittie, Maintenance & Operations Training Manager, CDOT

The entire NNTW Fall 2020 Webinar Series: Empowering the New Mobility Workforce, including links to recordings can be found at: https://www.nntw.org/nntw-fall-2020-webinar-series-empowering-the-new-mobility-workforce/

If you have ideas for future webinars please contact Glenn McRae (glenn.mcrae@uvm.edu) as we will be planning a series for the winter-spring.

WASHINGTON – A video created as part of the Transportation Research Board’s centennial celebration has been named the winner of three 2020 Telly Awards, which annually showcase the best work created within television and across all types of video production.

The video, Your Future in Transportation, highlights the excitement, challenges, and fulfillment that those who select transportation as their career can expect to enjoy.

“This is an exciting time of transformation in the transportation industry, and this award-winning video puts a spotlight on how young people have the opportunity to make a difference in the world by choosing transportation as a career path,” said Sandra Larson, transportation innovation strategies leader, Stanley Consultants Inc.; and chair, Centennial Task Force.

The video was produced as a partnership between the Texas A&M Transportation Institute (TTI) and the Transportation Research Board (TRB), a division of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.

“TTI and its transportation research experts have been active TRB volunteers for six decades, and we are pleased to have had the opportunity for our video production team to work with our partners at TRB on this award-winning production about the future of transportation and transportation careers,” said Greg Winfree, TTI agency director.

“I recommend that anyone who cares about the future of transportation, and the important role it can play in providing an equitable quality of life for all our citizens, view this video and then pass it along to their local school system with the request that it become part of their community’s STEM curriculum.” added Neil Pedersen, executive director, TRB.

“In addition to research and technology transfer, t

Truck drivers do more than just drive, and widespread self-driving tech is at least a decade away, researchers say.